The Cooperating Witness

By Mike Avery

Literary Wanderlust July 1, 2020, 284 pages, $11.99.  ISBN-13: 978-1942856580

It is a wonder that cooperating witnesses, “CWs,” in prosecutors’ parlance, are not at the center of more crime novels. They are in a difficult spot, and so are those who work with them. They serve two masters—the government agents seeking evidence, and the criminal enterprises that are the source of a CW’s knowledge. It can be nerve-wracking for all involved. At times, it can be deadly.

The challenges of working with cooperating witnesses, or CWs, range from tedium to terror. CWs typically enter into written agreements with the Department of Justice that clarify their obligations. The FBI gets buy-in from a U.S. Attorney’s Office regarding all material aspects of their use by the agency handling them. CWs gather information from their criminal association with investigation subjects. While they bring invaluable insider knowledge that can make or break a case, they can also cause more harm than good. There’s also the risk that at any moment they may be exposed or eliminated. Their handlers must exercise integrity in supervising these witnesses, lest they destroy or fabricate evidence. 

There is much here for a good writer to mine. But a great writer will ask larger, thornier, more thrilling questions. What if the FBI handlers are the criminals, and not the criminals themselves?

In his debut crime novel, noted civil rights attorney Mike Avery shows what can happen when agents adopt behaviors like their lawbreaker witnesses. The Cooperating Witness animates elements of a case, that, to adopt a phrase from the book, “had a little bit of everything. The mob, a murder, and a moll.”  The storyline might seem a stretch of the imagination except for the fact that it’s loosely based on a true—and sadly, under-reported—case.

Inspiration for Avery’s book came from his former client, Peter Limone, who passed away in 2017. With two others, Limone was falsely convicted of the 1965 murder of Edward Deegan, who was shot to death in a Chelsea, Massachusetts alley. This happened after FBI agents overheard, on wiretaps, members of the mob seeking permission for the hit, all because Deegan had insulted them. Hours after the hit, the Bureau’s Boston field office sent a memo to J. Edgar Hoover, who sanctioned agents’ methods, identifying the actual shooters. Corrupt informants Joseph “The Animal” Barboza and Vincent “The Hammer” Flemmi testified in 1968 against Limone and three others, two of whom served 30 years in prison. The Bureau hid exonerating evidence because they wanted to protect Barboza’s status. 

In The Cooperating Witness, the FBI frameup takes backseat to a crime investigation that’s as satisfying as any top-notch murder mystery, always leaving readers a few steps behind until story’s end. Avery hews to muscular mob books, but with a twist. The unlikely hero protagonist is a precocious law student, Susan Sorella. She is a 3L at Suffolk University Law School—walking distance from the North End—where Avery was a professor. While interning for jaded attorney Bobbie Coughlin, Sorella catches a break from a slew of boring jobs he assigns her. Through her father, she establishes a rapport with the local mob boss and becomes amateur gumshoe and defender in chief of Nicky Marino, a falsely convicted man. At the same time, Sorrela’s creativity and the risks she takes on behalf of Marino shake Coughlin out of his professional funk. An earlier setback has left him gun shy of zealous advocacy in the courtroom, and more inclined to encourage clients to take a deal. Initially idealistic and naïve, Sorella, in street parlance, “grows some,” and the story coheres in her quest for justice. 

The juxtaposition of old and new, novice and veteran, eager and burned-out, is a motif that keeps The Cooperating Witness vibrant. Diversion from law offices and courtrooms are noir-infused alleys and streets of Boston. Aside from Robert B. Parker, not enough gritty American procedurals take place in this picturesque city. Avery adds a modern protagonist in the vein of Parker’s famous private eye, Spenser. Instead of the highs and lows of that city’s Combat Zone and Brahmins, however, Avery’s denizen hails from Boston’s oldest and perhaps most tight-knit neighborhood, the North End.

Avery can spin a yarn along with the best. The Cooperating Witness weaves time-honored crime story elements into a well-written and riveting narrative. Avery—he wrote the handbook on Massachusetts evidence—makes courtroom procedure palatable. He starts slowly and ends at page-turning speed. Snappy dialogue reveals a lawyer’s trained ear for listening, and Avery is at his best with his evocations of cop and mobster talk. He also humanizes the ruthless mob boss Frank Romano. When Romano assigns a couple of his men to protect Susan, their soft underbellies are exposed, finding common ground in Italian cooking.

Sorella first meets her mob connection at the end of her shift at her father’s North End restaurant, Gabriella’s. Wise guys always sit with their back to the wall so they can keep an eye on the door; and they always read papers like The Boston Herald and not the Boston Globe. That Avery doesn’t explain those fundamental truisms is to his credit.

Her dad put down the towel and entered the dining room, leaving the kitchen door ajar. Susan peered through the opening. Jesus Christ. Twenty feet away, alone at a table with his back to the wall sat Frank Romano. He looked exactly like the picture The Boston Herald always ran of him when they did a story about organized crime. Tall and trim, he sat erect in his chair, wearing a dark gray suit, with a gray shirt and a burgundy tie. No jewelry, except for black sapphire cufflinks. Hair combed straight back. Deep-set eyes. They said Romano was a ruthless crime boss who presided over loansharking, gambling, drugs, fencing operations for major thefts, and the violence to keep everyone in line, including murder. What the hell was he doing at their restaurant?

Speaking of food, as with any crime writer worth his or her salt, Avery doesn’t skimp on the seasoning. As the editors of Blood on the Table: Essays on Food in International Crime Fiction note, our brains don’t differentiate between fictional and real-life sensory triggers. Food memories can animate a good tale. Even the jaded Irish lawyer Bobby can cook a great meal. “He sliced a shallot and dropped it into the skillet where it began to sizzle. He wiped off some cremini mushrooms, trimmed off the ends of the stalks and cut the mushrooms into thin slices. These went into the skillet as well. As he always did, Bobby wondered what it would be like to gather his own mushrooms in the forest, like in a Russian novel.” Avery nails the local vernacular throughout the book, even including “tonic,” Boston speak for soda.

First-hand descriptions of gangsters, lawyers, police, and investigators from Avery’s courtroom years keep the story vivid. The hint of romance between Susan and a more seasoned character is just that, a teaser to keep you wanting more. To keep it real, Avery conveys the ennui of certain legal work. In a welcome twist, Susan’s supportive father reverses the dynamics of such famous police procedural father-daughter relationships as Los Angeles police officer Harry Bosch—inspired by Michael Connelly’s City of Bones and Echo Park—and his daughter Maddie.

Readers will want to see more of Susan Sorella. As The Cooperating Witness draws to a close, Susan has just graduated from law school. Avery’s portrayal of this up-and-coming attorney, if any criticism is due, lacks discernable vices or a dark side. But there will be time for that once she settles into her chosen career track. 

The Cooperating Witness is an engaging read, and a welcome addition to the pantheon of crime novels penned by attorneys. Avery spent most of his professional career litigating civil rights and criminal defense cases, specializing in police misconduct. As part of the legal team for Peter Limone, he helped secure damages of more than $100 million for the families of the innocent men framed for murder by the Bureau--the largest award ever against the FBI for wrongful convictions. Released at the same time as the national movement urging law enforcement reform sweeps the nation, The Cooperating Witness feels especially timely, and equally rewarding.

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